DAVID BENTATA

  MY LIFE© - Chapter 45– Colorin, Colorado, este cuento …… This week has been eventful for me. I have been fortunate enough to have my 74 th birthday.   Who would have thought …..??? I once wrote a saying: “The days drag on, but the years fly past!” The more I think about that, the truer it gets. We work for so many years ….and not always in the best or happiest circumstances, day after day … another day … and another drags on till we get a mini-break of a weekend … then another day and another….and when you look back, so many years have zipped by and you are no longer as young, or as healthy, certainly not as physically capable and in your 20s, 30s …or even 50s and 60s! Where did the years go? Seems like but a few years ago I was in my 40s! The body takes its toll, and suffers our indiscretions, but one thing that does ….or should… improve and increase is our knowledge about LIFE. While the body deteriorates with the years, knowledge can and should increase, whether th...

  MY LIFE Chapter 46 – KILLING AUNTIE, then POORISH I really need you to read this with a Yanito mindset, as well as a basic smattering of Portuguese. I hope this is not too much to ask …. but as you can read in the title, we already have a Yanito word in it: “POORISH”(pronounced: poor <as in ´sure´ in English>, and then just  -´ish´) Those of a certain age will obviously remember using that magic word. It was a “time out” if playing a game like hide & seek or any other when we wanted to drop out of the game for a quick pee, or a Suntop & Chocoprince. If you have read Chapter 8 you will know that I had relatives living in Lisbon. My Uncle Samuel (Tito Samuel), his wife, my mother's older sister, Aunt Sara (Tita Sara), and her two sons, David and Meni. At the time this happened only Tita Sara lived in Lisbon. Tito Samuel had passed away several years earlier. Mum wanted her sister to come to Gib to live. Obviously David and Meni wanted her to live with them....

  MY LIFE© - Chapter 45– Colorin, Colorado, este cuento se ha acabado (or has it?) …… This week has been eventful for me. I have been fortunate enough to have my 74 th birthday.   Who would have thought …..??? I once wrote a saying: “The days drag on, but the years fly past!” The more I think about that, the truer it gets. We work for so many years ….and not always in the best or happiest circumstances, day after day … another day … and another drags on till we get a mini-break of a weekend … then another day and another….and when you look back, so many years have zipped by and you are no longer as young, or as healthy, certainly not as physically capable and in your 20s, 30s …or even 50s and 60s! Where did the years go? Seems lake but a few years ago I was in my 40s! The body takes its toll, and suffers our indiscretions, but one thing that does ….or should… improve and increase is our knowledge about LIFE. While the body deteriorates with the years, knowledge can and ...

  MY LIFE©  -  CHAPTER 44 (part 2)  - MY THREE MUSES Let me tell you the REAL start of my designing spree …. Obviously it is a big jump from fashion clothing to jewellery. After 58 years in the rag trade, having closed down the shop and …retired (scary word that!) … I was at a loss what to do. I was sauntering along Ben Yehudah Street in Jerusalem when I came across a little corner shop. Typical tourist place, postcards, guide books, tee shirts and souvenirs…..and on a separate stand, a selection of silver earrings.  What caught my eye was their rather strange designs. They were not as the jewellery styles found in most local jewellers. These were hand-crafted by very individualistic designers expressing their taste, their concept of artistry, regardless of what was being sold in mainstream shops. I was intrigued. Behind the counter, sitting peacefully reading a book, was an elderly lady ….so serene and peaceful that, to me at least, she seemed like an excep...

  MY LIFE©   -   CHAPTER 44 (part 1)   - JEWELLERY DESIGNER ? HA HA HA   In 2004 I closed the last of my clothing shops, TEO and SWEATERS. Both were in La Linea and I was already seeing a decline in sales generally. By then I had clocked up nearly 44 years in the “rag trade”, having started in the family business as soon as I finished my GCEs. I was tired of clothing and the last trade show I attended, in Madrid, convinced me I was over the hill to choose modern fashion trends. In fact, confession time! I took my (2 nd ) wife with me to that show who loved fashion clothes. I was looking through the samples I was being shown, by a very young chap full of energy and enthusiasm: “And this is the latest in jeans for the coming season ….FLARED & BELL BOTTOM JEANS!” I looked at him, perhaps with something of a jaundiced eye and replied: “I was selling these in the 1960s, in the 1970, in the 1980s even ….nothing new in it, my friend” He was crestfallen, p...